


listen to her roar

by Sybill



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Runaway Bride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2507057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sybill/pseuds/Sybill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her mother arranges a state marriage for her against her wishes, Elinor runs away to the high seas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	listen to her roar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rekall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rekall/gifts).



“If you try to make me marry him,” Elinor said, “I’ll run away.”

Her mother frowned, a stress line between her eyebrows. “You’ve known for years that you’d have to make a political marriage, Elinor. I held out for Geoffrey, rather than his father – Henri was quite keen on the idea of a young second wife to give him more heirs. I thought you’d be happy.”

Elinor stood very straight, her hands clenched in her dress. “Happy to marry a man I don’t love?” She bit her lip. “I know you married Papa for the kingdom’s sake, and that it’s been a good match, but I can’t, I just _can’t_. I hardly know him!”

“How many princesses get to know their bridegrooms before the ceremony?” her mother asked, in exasperation. “I’d met your father once before I married him, and he’d eaten something that disagreed with him and was farting nonstop. From what our agents in his palace tell us, Geoffrey is a decent young man who’s always been kind to his mistresses, and he’s already won campaigns against Alain of Banry. You could do much worse.”

“I don’t want to go to my marriage bed saying _at least I could have done much worse_ ,” Elinor said, through clenched teeth.

Her mother sighed, picking up her pen again. “I can’t talk to you about this right now. The chancellor’s coming after lunch to go over the autumn tax rolls with me. You’re marrying Geoffrey, and that’s final. Stop being miss-ish about it, and get used to the idea.”

“I’ll run away,” Elinor warned again.

“To where?” her mother asked, wearily. “Every girl has had those dreams once or twice, Ela. But are you really going to become a maidservant or a milkmaid? Risk being forced into your master’s bed, spend your youth toiling in the fields?” She rubbed her temples. “Far better to keep the place you were born to.”

“Maybe to you,” Elinor said, and left her.

~

Nobody looked twice at the young woman on the docks. She had stolen a maidservant’s kirtle, but traded it at the first village for the most nondescript outfit she could find. Now she blended in to the crowds, her veil and jeweled fillet left behind in favor of a working woman’s simple braids. The sun on her hair felt shockingly warm, and she grinned; at this rate she’d have a crop of freckles soon to help her pass unrecognized.

They wouldn’t miss her for a day. She’d sent her lady-in-waiting home for a day’s holiday, then mentioned to her sister that she was going to see her friend Maud, chaperoned by her lady-in-waiting. Maud didn’t live far, but she’d stayed there overnight many times before, and they wouldn’t think to worry until late the next day. And when Maud said she didn’t know anything, and her lady-in-waiting returned to mass confusion… well, she’d be long gone.

A good thing that her mother hadn’t taken her threats seriously.

Not knowing where to begin, Elinor started systematically asking for work at each departing ship. Her story was truthful, so far as it went – an unwanted marriage, contracted by her parents to pay off a family debt – and wasn’t uncommon. Her lack of experience was less of a problem (“you’ll lose your landlegs right quick, missy”, was one bosun’s warning) than her lack of muscles and calluses. One sharp bosun narrowed her eyes and shot a look up into Elinor’s unlined face. “Don’t tell me,” she said, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to know. But if you’re trying to leave quickly, try the _Sara Jane_. She’s leaving within the hour.”

The _Sara Jane_ ’s captain was as old and hard-edged as his ship. “I don’t know,” he said, dubiously. “We’ll be sailing in the Lioness’s waters, greenhorn. You don’t look as if you’d be much help in a battle, if she chose to roar in our direction.”

“I’m not afraid,” Elinor said, standing ramrod-straight. “And I know how to use a sword.”

The captain’s look turned speculative. Sword-training was uncommon, even though Elinor knew she looked like she could hardly lift a sword. Bless her sister Marjorie for insisting that she take at least a year of lessons before giving it up. _Every noblewoman should be able to defend herself_ , Marjorie had said, sternly, and she’d been right. Elinor had always loved her lessons, though she'd never had decent competition.

“Come aboard, then,” he said, at last, and Elinor hiked up her kirtle and did just that.

~

Elinor felt sorry for the captain, after. She’d only got to know her crewmates for a week, but he’d been a good old sod, caustically funny, taking a higher than usual risk by cutting through the Lioness’s waters in order to hopefully reap a higher than usual profit and save his wife’s farm from the taxman. Most of the other crewmembers had been similarly desperate – Bryony, whose biceps were bigger than Elinor’s head, had a five-year-old who needed expensive medicine; John, who could spit farther than anyone Elinor had ever met, was trying to earn enough to marry his sweetheart before her father found a better prospect; Anna, the cook and seamstress, needed enough money to pay the astronomical term fees at university. And then there were the eccentrics and the unemployable: Nyssa, who thought being on land was poison to her; Benedict, who had chosen the seafaring life after three years selling himself in the stews; Alys and Winifred, the lover nuns, who found more acceptance at sea than they had in their priory.

Kneeling on the deck, her hands in the air and her sword kicked away, Elinor found herself blinking back tears. She’d come to sea for this very reason, to find the Lioness, and yet in this moment all she could think of was the tired look on the captain’s face, when he hauled down his colors. He was ruined, and too old to start again. 

_At least he’s still alive_ , she thought, and raised her head to look at the boarding pirates.

The Lioness could have been no one else. Elinor wondered whether she would have fought in that color-slashed doublet, or whether she’d put it on to impress her captives. For a castle-raised princess, it wasn’t the richest garment she’d ever seen, but it came close. Next to her, John’s eyes widened. It wasn’t just the doublet alone, of course; jewels studded the Lioness’s ears, and the sword she wore would have been one Marjorie would have been proud to call her own. Elinor swallowed.

“Good morning, sailors,” the Lioness said, stopping in the middle of the deck. Her tawny hair shone in the sunshine. “This is now my ship. But you’ve shown good sense in yielding, and, not being burdened with injured crew, I’m inclined to be merciful.” She nodded to the launch. “Any of you who choose may strike out for the shore. It’s about a day’s rowing.”

“Any of us who choose,” Winifred repeated. She was the bolder of the two nuns. “And if we do not choose?”

The Lioness set her hands on her hips. “I take only women, and only some women, but if you wish to join my crew, come and see me in the captain’s quarters.”

Her crew had finished gathering up the captured weapons, and was now cheerfully ferrying them across the boarding ropes to their own ship. One of them, a big woman with frightening tattoos, grinned gap-toothed at Elinor. “Here’s a pretty one, Lioness.”

The Lioness raised her eyebrows. “Prettiness isn’t a necessary qualification, Betsy, or I’d never have taken you.” The teasing was dryly good-humored, though, and her crew roared with laughter, Betsy putting her hands up in surrender.

Next to Elinor, Anna was weeping soundlessly, and John looked grim. Winifred and Alys were talking, in low tones; Nyssa was already hauling herself upright to follow the Lioness to the captain’s quarters. 

Elinor accepted Betsy’s offered hand up, and followed Nyssa.

~

“Why do you want to join my crew?”

Elinor had been ready to answer “why should I let you join my crew”, which was what she’d expected the question to be. The other threw her.

“I find,” the Lioness said, her eyes shrewd at Elinor’s discomfiture, “that I can make a pirate out of any willing woman, unless they die in the attempt. What matters more to me is what kind of woman you are. Are you the kind to knife me in my sleep, or sell your comrades to the authorities? Or will you be drunk and lazy, forcing me to keelhaul you or put you off at the next port?”

The Lioness’s little speech had given Elinor time to gather her wits. “I work hard, and I would never sell you …”

“Why do you want to join my crew?” the Lioness asked again, the repetition sharper.

Elinor smoothed her trousers, feeling for all the world as if she was standing in front of a scolding older sister – although her sisters would have been shocked at how brown she already was, after a week spent in the relentless sun. “Because I don’t want to marry a man I don’t love.”

The Lioness looked at her, almost exactly as the sharp-eyed bosun had, back at the docks. “Merchant’s daughter or nobility?”

“I don’t think…” Elinor started. Pirates weren’t exactly _honest_ people, and who knew if her mother had put a reward out? It would have been incredibly embarrassing, and Geoffrey would hardly marry her if it was known that she ran away to escape the wedding – but then, they mightn’t have said she ran away, they might’ve said she was kidnapped. Although then, they’d have risked whoever found her hearing the full story and it getting out…

“You're asking to be part of my crew,” the Lioness said, leaning forward. “You’d become part of our family. We stick together. We die for each other. It’s an unlawful life, but on my ship we have certain rules. And the first rule is, there are no secrets.”

Elinor made her decision. “I’m Princess Elinor of Gallavar. I ran away to escape a wedding whose recommending characteristic was ‘you could have done much worse’. I want to join your crew because it offers me the chance to make my own future.”

The Lioness steepled her fingers. The diamond in her ear glinted. “Stiff,” she said, “and a bit pompous. But under the circumstances, forgiveable.”

Elinor waited.

“Go,” the Lioness said. “Have Betsy teach you how to get across the ropes. Your hands will blister, but they’ll heal.”

“Thank you,” Elinor said, lost for words – and then, because she could see the hint of a smile at the corner of the Lioness’s mouth, and because the breaking of tension had left her giddy, she dropped her most formal curtsey.

The Lioness laughed, a belly laugh, rich and amused. “Go on, Princess Pirate,” she said. “Go earn your cutlass.”

~

_epilogue_

The Lioness and the Sea Queen ruled the waves for thirty years, before vanishing from the history books. Some say they perished in a massive thunderstorm; others, under the wilting fire of a dozen ships sent to hunt them down. A few stubborn historians think they handed their fleet over to their crew and retired to a little cottage on the Eurican shoreline, where they lived to a ripe old age. Some even think they adopted a slain pirate’s infant and raised her as their own.

I do not know which story is true. All I know is that five years after her sister disappeared, my grandmother Marjorie received a letter. It was spattered with dust from the journey, but the messenger had been paid well, and it arrived unopened (although its merry pink ribbon was a little bedraggled). 

_Dear Marjorie_ (it said)

_Congratulations on your wedding and your baby. I’m to be married myself, next time we can acquire a ship’s captain (don’t ask). I’m sorry I ran without saying goodbye, but I wanted you to know that I’m happy and free. Tell Mother I’m sorry I couldn’t be the princess she needed – but that I will always be a daughter who loves her._

_Yours in love,  
Ela_

When asked, the messenger swore it had been handed to her by a young woman in the finest of health, brown as a sailor, with laughing eyes and windswept hair. She was, however, less complimentary of the young woman’s companion, a tall tawny-haired woman with diamonds in her ears and the flashiest of doublets. 

As I have researched the Lioness for my studies, I have always wondered whether my great-aunt’s companion was in fact the pirate captain herself – many sources tell of those diamonds, and the legendary doublet – and if this means that she indeed was a member of the Lioness’s legendary crew. Perhaps she knew the Sea Queen, the Lioness’s wife, who had a fearsome reputation as a swordswoman; Alys, who would later write the famous stories of pirate life; Nyssa, the balladeer of the seas.

And in my wildest moments, I almost wonder...


End file.
